In professional wrestling, like in all other sports, most fans don't know the name of a referee unless they do something very good or something very bad – just ask former WWE stalwart Earl Hebner.
Fortunately, one of the few referees who achieved name recognition for the right reasons is none other than Mike Chioda, the (largely) by-the-books babyface who called matches for the WWF and WWE from 1989 through 2020, when he was fired like many other talents during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Discussing his firing in an exclusive interview with Wrestling News, Chioda announced that he is still confused why he was let go, suggesting that he didn't buy the statement that his release was a matter of cutting budgets without touring income coming into the company.
“I don't know. I don't know to this day, Chioda said. “I was making really good money. I'll tell you straight out I was probably making 240 a year, but I've been there for 35 years at the time. I was out on surgery. I was out hurt. I made the transition. I moved to Houston in '07. I came here in 2019, waited about a year for a house to be built, and got here in October 2019. I flew to Alabama, once it went to closing on my house here in Tampa, went and got the surgery, came home, rehabbed here for six months. I was ready for WrestleMania but then the COVID hit and I didn't get a call.
“I'm like, ‘you gotta be kidding me.' But you know, when we look at it, like Tony Chimel and I, you know, Tony got released too. He was with the company for 38 years. You know, just no reason, no why, no nothing, You know, they said budget costs but come on. The company, I think six months later, they had their best quarter in so many years or something and did great. It wasn't just me. People like Tony Chimel. You know, I remember talking to Corano. I said, ‘Carano, what the f**k. You gotta be f**king kidding me?' I know he felt bad and he didn't know what to say. He said, ‘Mike, look, it's not just you. It's Tony Chimel, Tom Carlucci, John D'Amico.' I'm like, ‘Oh, so everybody over 30 f**king years plus with the company. So that's where you're going with this. It wasn't really a f**king budget cut', because he's mentioned three other people in three other different departments.”
Was WWE really trying to cut the “old” weight as they streamlined the promotion heading into the future? Did the arrival of Nick Khan help to inspire a desire to inject some new blood into the company who wouldn't protest when they try to take things in a new direction? Either way, based on the pop Chioda earned in his appearances for AEW since being let go, it's clear fans still like to see him in the ring calling things right down the middle.
Mike Chioda recalls working early Wrestlemanias for WWE in New Jersey.
Elsewhere in his interview with Wrestling News, Chioda decided to recall what it was like working WrestleMania IV and WrestleMania V in his home state of New Jersey.
Despite being a referee, Chioda was given a very different task during those shows and even had some company from local workers from around the area.
“WrestleMania IV and V was so cool for me because I was in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, living outside Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Willingboro. Four and Five was in Atlantic City, so it was phenomenal. I remember so many nights I had to sit in a pay-per-view truck because they were scared about somebody damaging in the f**king pay-per-view trucks,” Chioda recalled.
“Like the satellite trucks, they were scared about somebody damaging it. I don't know if it was like the WCW thing, but we had to take turns sitting there. I remember sitting in a satellite truck from like midnight to like seven or eight in the morning just watching the strippers come out of the clubs and people going in and out of the strip club, hookers walking by. I'm like, everybody's having fun but me sitting in a satellite truck. I'm like, how did I get this job?”
Goodness gracious, now that is an interesting story indeed, especially the part about having to protect the Pay-Per-View truck just in case WCW decided to try to attack the satellites and disrupt the transmission. While that obviously didn't happen, with DX actually attempting to do something similar a few years later, could you imagine what would have happened if it did?
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